So, individual accounts are still available, small business gets folded into regular business accounts ($50 per user per year)

Quote:

Please note this change has no impact on our existing customers, including those using the free version. And as before, Google Apps for Education will be available as a free service for schools and universities. Also, as the first cloud productivity suite with FISMA certification, we’ll continue to offer Google Apps for Government for $50 per user, per year.

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Honestly, even if it cost me $50.00/year (I'm grandfathered in) I'd use Google Apps on servers I admin just for GMail alone.

Mail is one of the heavier burdens on a server with users. It's a PITA, not only in terms of support but in terms of the constant warfare against spam with malware, spam without, spam that's a phishing attempt . . . GMail has demonstrably reduced spam and User support issues on every domain I've associated with Google Apps.

UCLA is saving thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands a year (my guess knowing the costs of local email service and Outlook for Exchange costs), just on currently enrolled students' email after paying Google for universal UCLA access to Google Apps.

And yeah, I know you already knew that. But some folks might not... Yet.

(Google spelled sideways is "Borg")

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Please note this change has no impact on our existing customers, including those using the free version. And as before, Google Apps for Education will be available as a free service for schools and universities. Also, as the first cloud productivity suite with FISMA certification, we’ll continue to offer Google Apps for Government for $50 per user, per year.

Key sentence there. I'm with Medievalist. That business expense is pretty much pennies compared to the world of self-host email. ::rocks in a corner, whispering Exchange and Blackberry, over and over again::

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My understanding is the personal use web apps (mail, Drive, etc.) are still going to be there, SF. This is a change to the small business model.

I do have a couple of domains where I'm going to have to write the check. It's still more than worth it.

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To clarify, if you were a small business, you used to be able to get an account to use the gmail system with your own domain (rather than @gmail) as long as you had no more than ten users. They already lowered it to 10 from, I can't remember how many earlier.

I have a feeling that for many small businesses, they'll just end up with a gmail.com address.

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"There's a Voodoo Game on in the Crescent City. Pray for the Pawns."
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More stories by Eldon Hughes -- "I Found A Knife"

Just to try and make it clear: this change only affects users of 'Google Apps for Business'. If you use GMail, GDocs etc for personal use (e.g., an @gmail.com or @googlemail.com address) you don't need to worry about this change.

It's a shame, because it was the free service that got me hooked to Google Apps. But I agree, $50 a year is tuppence for the quality of the Apps.